Five times the Kingsman tried to woo Eggsy,
by Flare Warrior
Summary: and one time they worked together and actually managed it. (Polyamory, Eggsy/Harry/Merlin/Roxy/Percival/James/Charlie/Other Knights, TW: torture).
1. Prologue

The Kingsman have nine lives, explains Harry, sitting between James and Charlie, his voice low and soothing in the wake of all Eggsy's yelling. Charlie doesn't look any different, and he'd never met James, but Harry looks like someone rewound his life to his twenties.

What Eggsy comes to understand, after long talks of blood rituals and the literally reviving powers of scotch, is that most of the Kingsman _are_ the founding members who lost their heirs in World War One.

Which explains - or at least he'd like to pretend it explains - how bloody _weird_ they all are.

But it's Charlie who comes at him first, so maybe there's just something in the water.


	2. Charlie

Charlie would not still be in Kingsman had Arthur not jumped the gun and made him somewhat immortal before he was knighted. The real annoying bit, Kay tells him, is that, since he can't be trusted in the field, where it's dangerous, they're probably stuck with him forever.

Or at least, he can't be trusted in the field unless he's desperately needed, which no one could have ever predicted happening, but the fact was nepotism might have gotten him proposed, but it wasn't what took him to the top three of the Lancelot candidates.

And so Eggsy's hauled up into a helicopter over the New England coast by none other than the smarmy little shit who'd tried to kill him less than a year ago at the end of his mission. His mission, which Charlie had become indisposable to. Why? Because he was the only staff on-hand who already knew everyone at the Met Gala, and could, though he'd never said this to Eggsy, memorize a string of numbers after one look.

He's basically along as a gadget with a personality. A bad personality. But that's not keeping him from pushing his luck.

"Where'd we get this?" Eggsy makes the mistake of asking, patting the carpet of the non-Kingsman-issued helicopter.

Charlie shuts the door and sniffs at him, "It's mine, of course."

"Of course." Eggsy rolls his eyes.

"I suppose someone like you couldn't even imagine having a luxury helicopter at their disposal. It's one of the many benefits of being upper-class," Charlie continues, and Eggsy ignores him in favor of stripping out of his shredded blazer, brushing off any stuck bullets and frowning at the ones that have left little burnt holes.

"I have cars, too. Loads of them, faster than you can imagine. I was born for this kind of work." Charlie keeps on, "And houses. Really, Kingsman should have made me a knight if only for my resources. I've one in the Bahamas that's empty right now."

He pauses, which is such an anomaly from the rest of this god-awful mission that Eggsy actually registers what Charlie had said.

"What?" he asks. Charlie might be bragging, but at least his boasts tend to make sense. What did the villa being empty have to do with anything?

"Well, I don't usually let anyone who makes less than a million a year in there, but since we'll be seeing a lot of each other over the next few centuries, I suppose it would be best if you learned some culture. And we don't have be back until Monday."

"Are you inviting me on a weekend, alone, with you, in the Bahamas?"

It might just be the red lights from the cockpit, but he thinks Charlie's blushing now. Charlie looks about to burst, but before he can Eggsy registers that red lights = bad and dives for the controls, shutting off autopilot.

"Missiles!"

"Did you miss someone?" Charlie shouts indignantly, taking up the co-pilot position.

"I got what we needed and got out!" Eggsy shouts back, swerving through the air in a bid to dodge the bombs heading their way. It's too bad, Eggsy thinks, that they turn out to be heat-seeking.

"We're gonna crash," Eggsy says.

"What? No we're not, we're not even close to stall-"

"No, we're gonna crash on purpose."

"What?"

Charlie still looks pretty horrified when the missiles lock onto the burning wreckage a few minutes later, even though he's landed safely on Eggsy, who landed less safely on a car.

He only gets a few seconds to mourn for his lost superiority, as they have to get the hell out of Dodge before the bad guys figure out that the helicopter was empty. Given the three missiles that hit it as they run, Eggsy's pretty sure that as long as they get out of range no one will come looking for them.

With that in mind, Eggsy leads them into some sort of late-night carnival. The person at the front gate even lets them in without paying with a wave and a warning that they close in an hour. Most people are filtering out slowly, but enough are set on staying until forced elsewhere that they'll be able to hide in the crowds. Hearty people, the Bostoners, since it's December.

Charlie is thoroughly sulking by then, which is a vast improvement from whatever it was he thought he'd been doing. The Bahamas, seriously, as if Eggsy would want to spend more time listening to Charlie itemize his family's assets.

"Cheer up, you've been bragging this whole mission about how much money you have."

That whips Charlie up into a little frenzy again, his eyes flashing in irritation and haughty superiority. "That wasn't even my second-best helicopter."

"That's the spirit." Eggsy hits him on the shoulder with more force than necessary and heads off to a food stand. He's not particularly hungry after the buffet at the gala, but he's done enough activity to be in the mood for something fattening. Charlie's still sulking when he comes back, but takes a break to give the food Eggsy offers him a scathing look.

"What the hell is this?" Charlie asks, eyeing the snowy greasy dough with something between morbid interest and distain.

"Fried dough. It's good. My dad had relatives out here, we came once when I was real small. Always wanted to come back."

"It looks like road kill."

"It's bread."

"I hope you aren't trying to poison me."

"Charlie, I poisoned your grandpa, who was a lot smarter than you. If I was tryin' to kill you, you wouldn't know." Eggsy takes a big bite of his own dough and ignores the complicated range of expressions that play over Charlie's face at that. He's well into his own greasy mess when Charlie takes a cautious bite.

"Mmph." That, that was a moan if Eggsy's ever heard one. He looks at Charlie with his eyebrows pinched together and finds him having a moment with the dough, his face, for once, stripped of all arrogance in favor of rapture, a spot of powdered sugar on the corner of his mouth.

"Told you." Eggsy says, and looks away into the safe middle distance, only getting the edge of Charlie's mild glare.

"Is it organic?"

Eggsy casts a look at the wheeled food stand that's covered in old grease stains and declares 'fried dough!' in a popular font from the eighties.

"Yeah Charlie, it's organic," he drawls, taking another bite. Charlie remains quietly enthralled by the fried dough, but his gloom has only receded to a hovering cloud, ready to crash back down at the next available opportunity.

"Will your parents be pissed about losing their third-best helicopter or somethin'?"

"They're at the family Christmas bash in Fiji," Charlie responds, nose upturned, though the attitude is a bit ruined by the powdered sugar dusting the tip of said nose. "They probably won't even miss it."

"What are you even doin' on this mission? I'd think the Heskeths would be off their heads at missin' their precious golden boy."

"What would they need me for?" Charlie asks, frowning.

"It's Christmas, Charlie. Haven't you seen all them shitty films about awful family dinners?"

Eggsy's not entirely sure he's looking at Charlie Hesketh anymore. His bravado is gone, replaced by uncertainty as he picks at his food. "I'm not usually invited."

"Oh."

If Charlie had said 'I wasn't invited,' Eggsy might have chalked it up to age and the eccentricities of the rich and the fact that Charlie had recently failed to become a spy. But he hadn't said that. He'd said usually, like it was a recurring thing and none one had to say it anymore and he'd stopped asking.

Charlie looks so strange, singed and melancholy and looking at his fingers like he's trying to resist licking them, that Eggsy's asking before he thinks much about it.

"You wanna come 'round to mine?"

Charlie looks up and blinks at him. His eyes are actually kind of stupidly blue, when their color isn't ruined under a sneer. "What?"

"For Christmas."

Charlie blinks again. Then he flushes to his hair, no red lights at fault this time, as his eyes go a little wide and spooked. There's a split second where Eggsy thinks he's about to say yes.

But then he ruins it.

"Wh-why would I want to spend a perfectly good day at some counsel flat with a family of chavs!?"

"There it is. Thought for a second someone had hacked your brain." He pushes himself to his feet, chucking his paper plate into a nearby bin. "Come on, we've lost them and it's a ways to extraction."

Maybe he imagines it, but Charlie looks, for the first time in their acquaintance, like he sorely regrets something.


	3. Lancelot and Percival

James is, without a doubt, hitting on him. He's making no attempts to be subtle. It would be a lot more welcome, or at least _sane_ , if Eggsy wasn't in the process of _disarming a bomb_.

"Be careful when you slide your fingers in," Lancelot fucking _purrs_ in his ear. "It wouldn't do to get rough with something so _delicate_."

Eggsy wants to snap _of course it wouldn't_ , because the fucking landmine he's standing on has the potential to splatter them both around like a dog with a pack of ground beef. But, because he's a bit fucked up, the closest he gets is a shaky, not-entirely-unisexually frustrated huff.

They managed to steal the data just fine, but this had always been the ' _shut your eyes and hope for the best_ ' bit of the plan. Wasn't much to be done about minefields, not when you want to be quiet. And they hadn't found the mine map anywhere in the compound, so, because Eggsy is apparently mental, and James is probably certified and registered, they'd winged it.

"Landmines aren't all alike, you know," James continues, low and sultry. "Some, like this one, all it takes is a little excitement, pressure, and they blow. But sometimes they won't go off for hours. It takes a little more to stimulate them to get off."

"Think you mean go off, gov."

"Do I," it isn't a question. "Be gentle with the fuse, once you find it. Start slow, but be relentless. It's the real trigger, you see."

 _I hate you_ , Eggsy thinks loudly, because he's a little afraid even that much will get them killed and also because James' vicious assault on Eggsy's libido is _working_ , for some reason. He didn't even know people did this shit in real life. He doesn't understand why hanging on the edge of death while James talks like a phone sex worker trying to get someone off on speaker mode is making him feel like he's getting fucked within an inch of his life. Except, the whole thing where he's metaphorically on the edge of getting fucked within an inch of his life. Sweat starts to prickle along his brow, his breathing wet and hot and harsh in his own ears, and it's only got a little to do with the explosive under his right foot.

"Here," James' lips brush his ear and Eggsy almost shudders, and the thrill mixes with terror so deliciously he's in danger of going off in his pants.

James has absolutely done this before, Eggsy realizes.

He is a _menace_.

His fingers join Eggsy's in the space they'd cut through the edge of the rusty old mine, warm and thick and _fuck_ he is about to _die_. Sure, it won't be permanent, but James is not allowed to play fast and loose with his goddamn lives.

"It's good to have a little help, the first time," hot breath ghosts over Eggsy's ear, James' form hovering close along his back while he deftly locates the fuse and works it out. Eggsy feels him do it of course, by design, and he inadvertently pictures James' long, skillful fingers doing not entirely different, but far less dangerous, things. "See? Enthusiasm goes a long way, but there's no substitute for experience."

Eggsy clears his throat. "Dealt with a lot of landmines, have you?"

James holds up the fuse, triumphant and smirking "Of sorts."

Eggsy stands, and very carefully removes his weight from the trigger. When nothing happens, he blows out a long, unsteady breath, and thanks whoever was listening that he doesn't have to find out what death is like just yet.

So of course, that's when James makes him almost regret his good fortune. A warm, strong hand settles on his throat, a firebrand as he steps up close and goes right back to breathing on Eggsy's neck.

"Your heart is racing," He observes, like that was all he was doing with his hand searing Eggsy's Adam's apple, the tips of his fingers resting on his jugular, his nose tucked behind Eggsy's ear. "Doesn't the release feel wonderful?"

Wouldn't that just be like James, to try and fuck Eggsy in an _actual minefield_. But, before Eggsy does something dumb, like start it, James uses his thumb to turn his head and flashes him a winning smile. "We should run."

"What?"

"This," James twirls the fuse in his hand, "was not the only fuse."

Running is awkward, not to mention dangerous, given the whole minefield bit, but there aren't any more mishaps. They make it to the edge and pause to catch their breath.

"We were lucky it didn't go off." James observes, very calmly though he probably shouldn't be.

Eggsy shrugs. "Weren't luck, gov."

"What?"

"I've dealt with a few landmines myself," he pauses, as if considering. " _Of sorts_. Learned a thing or two about makin' 'em take it slow."

Even though the explosion shakes the _air_ , James doesn't look away from him. The fire lights his face, turns his teeth and the whites of his eyes orange with its glow and gives his grin a savage, violent edge.

"Should probably keep running," Eggsy says when alarms start to ring out from the compound in the distance.

"After you."

* * *

"There you are," Alistair sighs when they make it to the rendezvous point. "You're late."

Eggsy feels himself lasered with a searching gaze and shivers. Whatever the last two hours of bombs and innuendo and fighting have done to his face is apparently of great interest to Percival.

"Had a bit of trouble in the minefield," James says casually. He's all leisure and unfazed suavity again, while Eggsy feels unspooled. "Don't worry, we're still zero and four." James winks.

Alistair doesn't look particularly happy over that - Eggsy's heard him scold James for being reckless and making their revival count uneven - but he leaves it be. Now that they aren't running, Eggsy remembers it's November and they're tucked up against the north coast. It's dark, and the sky is doing whatever the snowing version of a drizzle is, tiny bits of ice landing to melt insidiously into his clothes. He'd been sweating before, and now as he cools he drops fast and hard past a comfortable temperature, so it's not his fault that he starts shivering while the _married couple_ he's on a mission with chats, _like a married couple_.

He's contemplating his revenge on James when a sneeze tickles his nose, and it draws both of their attention to him. It's not even a manly sneeze. He only notices because Alistair's eyes practically change color at the little sound, normally he wouldn't feel silly sneezing like a kitten after surviving a thirty-minute firefight.

Their conversation ends when Alistair slips off his coat. "Here," he says, wrapping the massive wool thing around Eggsy's shoulders. It weighs a ton, is warm already, and it feels like some sort of spa therapy on his overworked muscles. It's also unfairly too-big and reminds Eggsy that he's the smallest Kingsman save Roxy. Broad shoulders and a strong jawline do not a giant make. He snaps out of his wandering thoughts a little later than he'd like.

"I can take the cold, don't want you freezin' in my place." He starts to shrug the coat off, but Percival's hands on his shoulders are like gentle bolts.

"Nonsense, I'm from Greenland originally. This is beach weather."

"What, really?" Eggsy pictured him in a brightly colored parka and somehow it...worked.

"Yes," he smiled, a much more subdued expression from James' easy, somewhat manic, smirks, and let go at last to unfurl his umbrella. "My family moved there as Lutheran missionaries. It was much colder even than it is now when I left in nineteen ten."

Eggsy's left blinking at the reminder that most of his co-workers have surpassed grandparent age and would more likely be listed as ancestors on a family tree. His distraction allows Alistair to sweep him in close under the shelter of his wide black umbrella and start guiding him off down the street. James hadn't lost his rainmaker and follows behind under his own, bothered neither by the cold or the fact that his husband is, if Eggsy isn't crazy, picking up where he left off in the minefield.

"Why'd you leave?" he asks. Alistair's style is much more subtle, easier to wave aside, Eggsy assumes, until he has his target ensnared. Half the danger is that Eggsy's tempted to fall for it.

"I wasn't a very good fisherman." He smiled wryly, and Eggsy can imagine he wasn't. He's watched Alistair with his guns - not _often_ , but his hands are hypnotic, nimble and controlled, nothing but gun callouses built up on his fingers from a century or more on sniper rifles. He's a whipcord in a fistfight, too, but none of what he's good at would be of use under five layers of thick protective clothing on a fishing boat.

"You'd have been wasted on them, anyhow," he replies, and that earns him a small, genuine smile.

They round a corner and Alistair leads them into the squares of light shining out from the glass front of a cafe, then guides Eggsy to sit in under the wide cover over one of the outdoor tables.

"You really want to sit outside?" Eggsy asks. He's reached that floaty stage of the after-mission come-down, so he can't be arsed to care either way. It's not like he's cold, but that's because he's got Alistair's coat on.

"It's quieter," Alistair says while James sits. "Besides, doesn't the snow look lovely?"

Eggsy looks and it...does, actually, now that he's not freezing. It's really just frost, but the streets are gleaming with it. Eggsy sinks into the coat, and the chair by extension, and lets out a long breath. Alistair's footsteps move away until they disappear under the sound of the cafe door's bell, and that's when he realizes he's closed his eyes.

When he opens them he finds James watching him like a favorite film, amused, relaxed, fond. It's a paradigm shift from his blazing lust earlier. Maybe he has to by dying to be turned on. Eggsy has to bite his cheek to keep from laughing at that idea.

Alistair returns shortly with three cups balanced expertly in his hands. One is set by the empty seat, the next given to Eggsy, and finally the last he hands to James. James takes it with a smile and hands off the flash drive with the data they'd both almost lost a life for.

"I still don't see why we couldn't have just uploaded the data ourselves," Eggsy says, cradling the porcelain mug between his palms and letting it sooth away the trigger-soreness from his fingers.

Alistair settles in the remaining seat and plugs the flash drive into his Kingsman tablet. A few clicks later and the data begins to upload, and Eggsy can almost hear the appreciative Merlin sounds from London.

"From the sounds of it, neither of you would have been able to keep a tablet in one piece," Alistair observes. He'd been on backup, much to his own annoyance, but Eggsy didn't think he'd been idle. Bits of their infiltration had been a little too easy. The kind of easy that comes when the guards you were hoping not to run into had been sniped.

Eggsy hums, at last taking a swig of the hot chocolate in his hands. It burns a little more than he thinks it should. "This spiked?"

"Baileys, to warm you up. It's not strong."

He spreads his fingers over the outside of the mug, trying to get a little more of the heat into them, and involuntarily winces. "Something the matter?"

"We had to shoot our way out. I don't get it, you'd think after a year I wouldn't get sore from pulling triggers."

"You always will after that much shooting, I'm afraid." James supplies.

Eggsy's only half listening, however, because Alistair has shifted around in his chair, putting them so close their legs have tangled, one of Eggsy's knees between Alistair's, and is coaxing the hot chocolate from his hands.

"Here," is all he says as he takes Eggsy's over-worked trigger hand between his own. "Do you mind?"

Alistair's hands are fever-warm from his own drink, but they're soft and dry, so he shakes his head because he really doesn't.

Less than a minute later he's sure they're going to need to pour him onto the plane when they're extracted. Alistair's _done something_ to his fingers that has not only soothed the ache, but made him flex them every so often just to make sure they're still there. And it's ricocheting up through him too, worse as he moves up and drifts his fingertips along the inside of Eggsy's wrist, chasing away the fatigue and replacing it with a needy sort of starvation for more.

He's got no idea what Alistair is doing, but it's stolen away Eggsy's bones and is somehow almost as bad, if in a much softer way, as James' ridiculous minefield stunt. He's pretty sure massages are supposed to hurt before they feel good, but whatever Alistair is doing has done nothing but melt him to his wicker chair.

"Alistair is a magician with his hands," James murmurs in response to this thought.

"Oh," Alistair says, drawing back and nearly drawing a whine of disappointment from Eggsy's lips "I got you something."

He's so caught up in the melty feeling that he doesn't register the words until Alistair pools something in his palm.

"What?" Eggsy asks. When Alistair takes his hands away again, he finds a tiny snow globe keychain left behind. It's very ornate - not something he just stumbled on at a gift shop. The globe is perfectly round glass that looks more fragile than it is, he's sure, little gold screens of metal sweep up a bit along the edges to hold it in place, and inside a surprisingly detailed model of...the Kingsman mansion.

 _Definitely_ not found in a gift shop.

"When we were in Moscow. You said they reminded you of home."

 _Oh_ , he thinks, and tears up almost instantly, fucking hell, he'd like to blame the spiked hot chocolate but it really isn't that strong. "I," he clears his throat, takes a swig of the hot chocolate for strength, and tries to sound less like he'd been punched in the heart when he speaks again. He's not sure he succeeds. "Thanks. It's really...it's beautiful."

Alistair smiles at him and sits back, satisfied, drink cradled in his hands. But their legs are still tangled together, and Eggsy figures even if they weren't he would still feel close.

James is grinning at them around his own drink on the other side of the table, his fire burning but quieted to something like a hearth. Eggsy has no doubt it would take next to nothing to set him off, but for now he's content to sit and wait for extraction.

Sugar and spice. James is a day spent street racing, the type of person who'd ride him hard and put him away wet. In contrast, Alistair is the sort who'd go for a day in reading and then lay him out for hours, take him sweet and gentle and thoroughly, then clean him up after and make him breakfast in the morning.

Honestly, if they'd asked for a shag he probably would have said yes, and that was where it looked like things were going until someone sniped Percival.

He still isn't totally climatized to the whole nine lives thing, so it isn't his fault that he freaks out and maybe murders the shooter a little more brutally than is strictly necessary.

But, while Alistair is up and muttering about how at least he and James are even again a few hours later, the mood is effectively ruined.

He doesn't feel bad _at all_ for wanking off that night to the memory of James' voice in his ear. Though it might feel like a little bit of a sin when he finishes to the phantom feeling of Alistair's hands on his wrist.


	4. Roxy

"I need to work on my NLP skills," Roxanne had said in a bit of a rush that morning, which was something they did in training anyway so he didn't see why she should be nervous.

He's pretty sure, later that day, when his mum's house is in utter shambles and Daisy is still screaming, that this isn't what she had in mind. She'd been accommodating, of course, when his mum called him over as emergency babysitter and his little sister crashed the evening. Even eager, that gleam she got in her eyes when she was faced with a challenge ramping up a little higher than he thought a toddler warranted.

Now, as she surveys the devastation a teething two-and-a-half-year-old can have on a house, he has to revise that opinion.

"They don't usually like me," Roxanne had said early on in the fit, and now she's convinced it's her fault, which is silly since kids just freak out sometimes. Daisy sure has shit timing, though.

"I can't do it." She blurts from the threshold between the dining and living rooms. "I'm...sorry. I'll get out of your hair, I'm only making things worse here-"

Eggsy walks over to Roxy, and Daisy screams indignantly at the loss of her audience. "Roxy," he says, gripping her shoulders, "Remember the plane? This is just like that. You can go if you want, or you can jump in with me and get shit done."

Roxy wavers. Her eyes flicker around the room, wincing when Daisy loudly reminds them of her displeasure, as if they might have somehow forgotten. Then steel bleeds into her eyes and shoulders, her iron-clad determination awakened.

"What can I do?" she asks, looking him dead in the eye.

Even though nothing is actually any better than a minute before, Eggsy feels rejuvenated. "I'll mind her. You can fix Mister Snuggles, and hopefully that'll calm her down enough that we'll be able to start triage on the house."

Roxy nods, "Kit's in the medicine cabinet," he says, letting her go to it and heading back over to coax the ripped teddy bear from Daisy's sticky fingers. "There love, let's let Roxy fix him up, yeah? She's a certified teddy bear doctor."

By the time he has the bear on the couch and Daisy's sobbing form mostly settled in his arms, Roxy is back with a threaded needle. She looks relieved to have something sharp in her hands, at least, and that makes something warm glow in Eggsy's chest.

"How do I-?" She frowns at the ripped bear, then whips out her phone and sets about a spastic Google search. "Let me know if I mess up."

She sits down and goes at the task with an intense severity. Eggsy coos and rocks Daisy while she works, leaning over her shoulder and offering suggestions when he thinks they might help. He forgets, sometimes, that she was raised as rich as any of the Kingsman. But if she's a natural with anything, it's weapons. Her needlework is quick and sure, and after a few false starts and uneven stiches she's got the hang of it.

"Here," she says to Daisy, handing the bear out the way Eggsy might offer a crocodile its dinner. Daisy whimpers and takes it, rubbing at the stiches and burying her face in the fur. It works - she's calmer, calm enough that they can start slow work on the kitchen.

She'd gotten away from them for a little bit earlier and stuffed her least favorite doll down the sink drain, backing it up. Eggsy wipes down the counter from Daisy's dinner while Roxy pries the doll out. He turns when she digs a wrench out of one of the kitchen drawers.

"Hang on, love, there's no need of that." He says, coming over.

"There's nothing I can find left," she protests.

"Take her for a second," Roxy gives him a dubious look but does as he asked, trading him for the wrench. He he twirls it in his hand. "There's a trick to old pipes, real technical." He brings the jaw down onto the pipe, hard enough that an echoing clang rings out through the kitchen. The sink gurgles, and the quiet sound of water draining reaches their ears.

Roxy cracks a smile. "Is that why you always hit jammed guns?"

"I haven't done that in ages!"

Daisy is drowsing even more against Roxy's shoulder when they stand up, listing while she sniffles. Eggsy comes close and puts a hand on her back. "There's my girl, wore herself right out didn't she."

Daisy mumbles and turns her face into Roxy's shoulder, and Roxy sways lightly to comfort her.

"You ain't bad with her." Eggsy observes.

"My mother works for a children's charity. She had kids and toddlers around all the time. I've dealt - sorry, I meant, that is, I've worked with children before, which is probably why- I'm going to stop now."

"'S alright," Eggsy laughs "You ain't exactly a natural, but you've been a great help."

He gets a weak smile for that. Not ten minutes later Daisy is asleep in her arms, and Eggsy leads her down the hall to the nursery. Roxy settles her in bed much the way she handles live bombs.

Eggsy brings the blanket up over Daisy's sleeping form, and they both creep away using their not inconsiderable stealth skills to be as quiet as possible. When the door is shut at last, both of them collapse back into the wall with twin sighs of relief.

The whole day had been a total disaster, half the house is still in ruin, Eggsy's hair is matted with mashed yams on one side, and Roxy looks downright haunted. He starts to laugh.

Roxy bites her lip, then shakes with silent laughter as well, until they're both leaning on each other and wheezing as quietly as possible so as not to wake the terror just a room away.

When they calm down enough to wipe the tears from their eyes, but not enough to lose their smiles, Eggsy finds himself really, really close to Roxy's lovely face. She's a beautiful bird, that's for sure, and the fact that she can kill him in about a thousand ways with her shapely form is as enticing as it is terrifying.

"Easy as falling." He means to say 'skydiving' but some Freudian slip in his mind changes the word as it leaves his lips.

Roxy's eyes darken marginally. They flick from his own to his lips, and they're standing so close it would take basically nothing to-

"Oh," Eggsy draws back quickly, laughing a little louder and more hysterically than he means to. "Emotional crisis, teachin' you stuff, that was smooth. That neuroprogramming really works, don't it?"

Rather than laugh too, Roxy looks bereft for a moment. Then the look morphs into a one he's never seen on her before. Like she's just made the losing move in a chess game. Then it's shoved to dim embers and she pastes on a tired smile.

"Doesn't it."


	5. Merlin

"Hmmm," Merlin hums, and Eggsy jumps, stumbles, and steps on his own feet. Amelia has long since stopped humoring him, so now he has to practice alone, preferably without an audience since his dancing is somehow still _abysmal_. He hadn't even turned the lights on so he wouldn't have to see it, and on the off chance anyone was still around he would have time to hide in shame. "Terrible." Merlin observes helpfully.

"Oh fuck off, Merlin. Not all of us learned from the people who invented dancing."

"So learn from someone who improved it."

"Well maybe if Harry wasn't out or anyone else would dance with me -" Eggsy cuts off abruptly when the hand he was gesturing with is captured in a much larger one. It's apparently the beginning of a siege, and he acts too slowly to escape a full occupation. Merlin's arm winds around his back, drawing him in until they're pressed together as much as two standing people can be.

Merlin looks so unassuming most of the time that Eggsy tends to forget how powerful he actually is. Merlin is shredded under his jumper, Eggsy feels like he's up against rocks with a bit of give and all covered in fine cashmere. But Merlin's hands are even pressure and soft touches, one folding around Eggsy's captive hand, the other splaying between his shoulder blades.

"Begin," is all the warning Eggsy gets before Merlin moves, flows like water over the floor so that Eggsy has half a mind to wish he was just watching - Merlin might not have been being metaphorical about having improved dancing, his footwork is masterful, his posture impeccable, so he's brought Eggsy's abilities up if only by proximity. Eggsy feels like a puppet on strings held in Merlin's confident, skilled hands. But he doesn't really wish he was watching, because Merlin says " _Better."_ in his ear and he wouldn't have let go of Merlin for a million private shows.

It's like the moment in the movies when the protagonist thinks they're safe, only to turn around and find some titan at their back. Except this titan is six feet of genius wrapped in soft wool jumpers with a voice like liquid chocolate and _apparently_ the charisma of an eighteenth-century lord.

As they swirl around the room Merlin murmurs little tips that Eggsy doesn't hear, but probably obeys anyway. He thinks his posture isn't as sharp as Merlin's, since he's following he should be pressed back, but he's not, he's close enough to have most of his vision taken up by Merlin's eyes, watchful as always but somehow more intent than usual.

An endless age on, the swish of their feet on the black mats dies down, and with it the phantom music that Eggsy had imagined they were dancing to. Merlin doesn't let go immediately.

Eggsy finds himself the subject of one of Merlin's analytical gazes, a curiosity, and a rawness to this one he hasn't seen in the others. It plants a seed in his mind, an idea that sprouts and does its level best to blast to full height in the time it takes Eggsy to blink. Merlin's hands staying, shifting. He can picture it, pushing himself up to Merlin's ear and saying he's got a _complaint_. He manages not to by virtue of the fact that he's frozen in place.

"See lad? Not so hard."

"What?" The question is somewhat terrified because he got caught on the word _hard_ and panicked before the sentence came together in his head.

"Dancing. You've just done two nearly perfect waltzes."

Two? "Good. Great." Now if only he could remember any of it.

Amusement flickers over Merlin's features "This is for your mission in Morocco, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Eggsy manages. Otherwise he would never have even thought about working on his shitty technique. But if this would happen sometimes, well, he might have to revise that behavior.

Merlin does let go then, and Eggsy only has a split second to be disappointed before he receives another shock.

He'd never once wanted to be a doctor or a biologist, never wondered all that much about how bodies work, but he wants to know now how it is that Merlin looks almost _more_ powerful kneeling at his feet.

Then Merlin's lips are soft against the back of his hand and he hears a pop and a fizzle as his brain short-circuits. He's mixed up, stunned, can't form a coherent thought that isn't chimeraed from three others and mostly nonsensical. Merlin's eyes are closed, a calm contrast to Eggsy's sparking nerves and fluttering heartbeat, his fingers warm and gentle in Eggsy's palm. It's such a contrast to what he knows Merlin is, what he can do. There's a goddamn tiger at his feet and Eggsy has always had an unhealthy love of anything proud and dangerous.

Then he lets go, opens his eyes, washed to a grey sort of brown in the moonlight, and looks at Eggsy intently.

"This is imperative."

"What?" If Eggsy hadn't whispered the word, he's sure he would have squeaked it.

Merlin pushes himself to his feet, slotting his lithe limbs back into place "At the end of the dance with the hostess, should you win one. She's never failed to go home with a gentleman." Before Eggsy can gather any wits, he does exactly what Eggsy had been thinking about (well, one of the things) and leans over to speak into his ear. "Good night, Eggsy."

Breath ghosts against his neck, which, while it had always been one of his things, was starting to generate a Pavlovian response that felt a lot like desperation and a little like devastation. Then Merlin's solid warmth is gone, off to retrieve his tablet and wander out, as if oblivious or uncaring that he's just rattled the foundations of everything Eggsy thought he knew.

He hadn't thought about it before.

But now you can bet he is.


	6. Harry

"How long is James gonna be stuck on zero-contact missions? Think he's starting to go bonkers." He and Alistair both, since the sniping incident. Bonkers is relative around the Kingsman base now to Eggsy, though, because it seems like the whole of the agency is gunning for his arse. All of the fourteen semi-immortal agents have had a go at him since he became a minted Kingsman, and even he's not sure how he's dodged getting shagged at this point.

All fourteen, excluding Harry.

"Probably for the remainder of his current life," Harry replies. "It wouldn't do to have someone from an old mission recognize him in the field and start asking questions."

"Heaven help us."

"Quite."

Eggsy reclines in the chair he's affectionately dubbed _his_ in Harry's office and lets the martini warm his throat. They're ensconced under the soft yellow lighting of Harry's desk lamp, and the crimson walls have long since begun to draw feelings of safety and contentment from Eggsy when he's inside them.

He's gotten used to looking at Harry and seeing a man his own age, but really seeing _Harry_ , slipping around through time, or just age, by the power of a rich families' vengeance.

He's absolutely thinner, though still not thinner than Eggsy. Harry at any age is built like a brick house, but he's managing to toe the line between that and twink at twenty. It's not really fair, but Eggsy's light-footed approach to fighting would fail spectacularly if he was as solid as Harry.

"Is there an Excel sheet someplace with revival counts?" he hedges after a stretch of comfortable silence. The question gets him a raised eyebrow.

"They don't hide it."

"Yeah, but I feel bad for askin'."

Harry sips his own martini with a small smile. "Yourself and Roxanne are too new to have a count, Charlie, of course, has one," he went on, listing the others in ascending order. None had less than three, none more than seven. "Chester was at six. A bit high, so we'd benched him for a bit. Merlin took care of the remaining two, plus one for luck."

There's a notable absence in Harry's list, and Eggsy cocks his head. "What about you, Harry? What's your count."

Harry's lips twitch a bit. "I've nearly lost my lead. Valentine was my second death to date."

Eggsy whistles. "Just two? They ain't kiddin' when they say you're good. Who popped your cherry?"

"I did." Harry says, smirking at the inuendo but looking strangely into the middle distance. "It was in the eighties. I was fourteen when the first World War ended, the bastard child of an earl who would have sooner bequeathed his fortune on Kingsman than me. So I was quite old and decrepit by then. I went for a walk on the back trails, found a nice spot, and shot myself in the head."

"Jesus, Harry." Eggsy finishes the rest of his martini. If he really thinks about it, that sounds like a very Harry thing to do. Shedding his skin, offing himself because no one was good enough to do it for him even in his seventies.

"Don't worry, Merlin made me promise not to do it again. If I die, I die because there is no other option. Unreasonable," he finishes his martini as well "but it has made me a rather good agent."

Good enough, Eggsy knows, that even as Arthur he's allowed on missions almost as often as the knights. If anything, he's just become the Kingsman's model of the nuclear option.

"May I ask why you wanted to know?"

"Curious, I guess. Well, that and..." Eggsy pushes himself up, the rustling of his clothes a whisper swallowed by the atmosphere, the padding of his socked feet gently audible on the carpet. He stops in front of the desk, sets his hands on it to lean closer to Harry. "Offin' yourself aside, it's good to hear you're only at two," Eggsy says eventually. "Kind of a shitty thought, that me an' Rox would be the last ones standing out of everyone we know now. And," he flexes his fingers "I'd really rather not find out what it's like to lose you for real for a while."

Harry spends a good long minute looking at him, his gaze searching, contemplating. Eggsy knows that look, lets himself be studied. He does this when he's deciding how to proceed, weighing the risks and benefits before he inevitably goes through with whatever idea he has anyway.

Slowly, Harry rises from his chair. He comes around to stand before Eggsy, and Eggsy looks up at him, waiting.

"Having additional lives doesn't change how little we know about when we'll die or who we'll outlive. Anything could still happen. It just gives us more time to wonder." Harry's close, so close now, the instep of one foot brushing the blade of Eggsy's as he hovers just a breath away. "Best not to worry about it." his words are barely a whisper, but a whisper that brushes Eggsy's lips.

Eggsy's one of their best agents, but, and he's said this out loud before, embarrassingly enough, a Kingsman is only as good as their king. Harry as Galahad had gotten him wrong a few times, most notably when, immediately after bailing Eggsy out of an eighteen month sentence he'd only been caught for because he hadn't wanted to kill a wild fox, Harry had proposed him for a job interview that had a shoot-a-dog portion.

Harry as Arthur knows him inside and out. He'd never ask Eggsy to do something he couldn't do. He's stacked impossible mission upon impossible mission on Eggsy, and Eggsy's always come back because he knows _exactly_ what Eggsy's capable of, how much he can handle. It's that surety that carries him through the hardest missions, and it's why, if Harry kisses him right then, he won't panic. There won't be even a split second's doubt in his mind that he isn't good enough, that they can't work, that Harry won't want him once he really knows who Eggsy is, because Harry already knows him and would never think those things and still kiss him.

He closes his eyes. For a long moment, hesitation hangs in the air so thick it's like a tangible presence, a third person, a voyeur to their private world.

Then Harry lets out a long breath and slips the empty martini glass from his fingers. Eggsy opens his eyes again as Harry draws back.

"I think we could use another drink," Harry says without looking at him, and is gone a moment later.

Eggsy sets his hands on the desk for balance as his knees go weak.


	7. Everyone

"Apparently you can't plan a meet-cute in real life."

Alistair pats Roxy's hand. "No, that was inspired, Roxanne. You came as close as any of us."

"I'd written in my own failure, though."

"I got sniped. We all make mistakes."

"Merlin, you should have gone for it after the waltz." James chimes from across the table.

"He was petrified." Merlin rumbles, frowning at James' toothy grin.

"Isn't that the best time?"

"Not everyone has a hard-on for fear like you do." Harry replies, then "I could have had him."

"So you keep saying, yet he's not here."

It could have been any one of them to say it, given the range of agreeing looks from the others, but James is the actual mouthpiece. How the hell the seduction of Eggsy Unwin has become so difficult as to warrant a round table meeting is a mystery, but here they are.

All of them, twelve of the original thirteen (as Chester knew none of them would have agreed to Valentine's madness) plus Roxanne, are seated around the table questioning their long-heralded abilities to woo a person. Harry sighs and contemplates the amber liquid in his glass.

"I have too much power over him," he confesses. "One might argue I have too much power over all of you now, but he especially would follow me smiling into hell. It doesn't seem fair."

"Fair to whom? We've been trying for months and you come in and could snap him up with a martini and a kind word, but then you blow it on purpose." That's Kay, who'd gotten as far as a kiss on the cheek before the heavens had opened up and dumped record rains on London, flooding the street they'd been on at the time in less than an hour.

Harry knocks back his drink, runs a hand through his hair, and almost curses when half an hour's work on it that morning is ruined.

"Do you not want to bring him in, Harry?" Merlin asks.

"Of course I _want to_ , how could you doubt that? Eggsy's marvelous and-" Harry stops, focuses on pouring himself another drink. "It wouldn't do to leave one of our kind to live out their numerous lives alone," he revises. "But I need to consider my position. I need to consider his wellbeing."

"You need to stop considering and fuck it out like adults. Why's this so complicated for you?"

"Because I _could have him_ , James, and I can't for the life of me tell why."

"Maybe, and here's a wild thought, it's because he wants you to," Roxy drawls.

"Yeah, fuck that, Harry. I can make decisions for myself, thanks."

Eggsy yanks him up by the lapels from his silly yellow dining chair and kisses him hard on the mouth. Harry knocks over his glass scrambling for a handhold on the table, his other eventually landing on Eggsy's wrist. He's too stunned to kiss back, and eventually Eggsy pulls away, smirking. "You've got no idea how long I've wanted to do that."

"What...?" Harry asks. The closet door behind his chair is still cracked, no doubt where Eggsy had been listening.

"We cheated," James grins over the rim of his glass at Harry.

"Eggsy snapped, actually," Bors chimes "Barged in on Merlin and demanded to know if we were hazing him. Said he was, and I quote, ' _going to die of blue-balls, gov_.'"

"Yeah thanks, Bors, real romantic touch you got."

"So we told him," Merlin explains. "About us. And about how we've been trying to warm him to the idea of a relationship."

"And then we set you up because you're such a tense bugger," James finishes.

"Ah," Harry says faintly. Eggsy still has ahold of him, his eyes shining with fondness. Harry blinks a few times and belatedly pushes himself to his feet.

He slides the hand he'd rested on Eggsy's wrist up, trailing his fingers lightly over the warm material of his suit, and settles it carefully on the hinge of his jaw.

"You're sure?"

"Yes, Harry," Eggsy's teeth flash on a grin. "As long as..." his eyes flick to the others, then back. "Well you was right. You can have me, any time, any place, any way. I'm yours, Harry. But, and maybe this is normal, I'm not that easy for everyone."

"James and Alistair are married," he says gently. "It happens. No one will hold it against us."

Eggsy peers at the table at the others, who all give some form of agreement, nods and rolled eyes and waves that say _go on._ Harry doesn't need to see them do it, so he watches surety bloom in Eggsy's eyes instead. He looks back a Harry once it has. "Then yeah, I'm sure."

Serenity washes over Harry. He leans in and captures Eggsy's lips, kissing him for real this time.

"Finally," someone says, and Eggsy makes a noise of agreement and winds his hands into Harry's hair. Harry draws him close with his free hand, feels him raise up onto his toes to deepen the kiss, leaning his weight on Harry's chest. It's blissful, and easy, and electrifying all at once.

They only break apart when the door clicks open. Beside them Merlin stands to address the newcomer. "One moment Amelia, we're just finishing up here."

"Thought we was just getting started." Eggsy says, smiling up at him. That's an invitation if Harry's ever seen one, and an invitation Merlin takes. He steps up and lifts Eggsy's chin, and Eggsy tilts his face up without hesitation into the gentle kiss. His frame trembles a bit in Harry's arms, but he's eager enough and smiling when Merlin pulls away.

"That too," Merlin says.

Appeased, Eggsy sinks back down off his toes and glances around the room. "Where's Charlie fit in then?"

"What?"

"Well he ain't here is he? And he was the first to try it."

"He _was_?" Alistair asks, blinking at him while Harry buries his face in Eggsy's neck.

"Oh, god. Must we?"

"Do you really want to isolate him?" Merlin asks. "What happened to _'it wouldn't do to leave one of our kind to live out their numerous lives alone'_?"

"Please, he's not smart enough to go against us." Harry's voice is muffled by Eggsy's suit.

"I shouldn't have to be the one to remind you that he has _nine lives_ to figure it out." Eggsy grouses "Besides, he's not so bad." Now Harry picks his head up, eyebrows raised at Eggsy. "What? He's not."

Harry pushes their foreheads together and shuts his eyes with a heavy sigh. "Alright, where is he?"

"That's why I'm here, sir," Amelia says. "We can't find him."

* * *

Pain explodes in starbursts from everywhere when he moves, pulses through his veins in place of the blood he's lost. Like clockwork his anxiety rises when the guards are supposed to come back, but it's been high for what felt like hours now with no sign of anyone. The lights flicked out days ago - what little is left of his mind acknowledges his sense of time is well and truly ruined - and the only sound he can make out is that of his own ragged and harsh breathing.

Distantly, his ringing ears catch phantom noises. He thinks it's them, he thinks he's hallucinating. The noises get louder and louder until he can't deny them, shouting and shooting, then more shouting in a new tone.

The door opens, and light stabs into his eyes.

"Oh my god, _Charlie_." If there was anything left of his throat he might have screamed when he was lifted from his place, crumpled on the cold cement floor. But there isn't, they've drowned him too many times for that. As it is he barely manages a wheeze. The voice keeps talking, the working-class dialect ought to grate on his nerves but the parts of him it bothers have been stripped away, everything's been stripped away, and instead it sounds like a hymn from an angel's lips. His uneven fingers scrabble for purchase on bespoke Kevlar, and the arms under him tighten.

"What the fuck are you doin'?!" it asks, breaking off from its desperation-tinged comfort.

"The kindest thing I can," says a low voice in much more cultured syllables, and then everything is gone.

* * *

Charlie blinks awake and has no idea where he is. The surface he's on is soft, the air is clean, but he's pinned down on one side. He flutters his eyes open and starts trying to dredge up the energy to flail, but a firm hand caches his free one before he manages it.

"One of the suites in H.Q." Merlin's voice, he realizes, and relaxes. The weight against his side resolves itself into the press of a warm, sleeping body. Not restrained, pinned. Slowly his eyes remember how to focus, and he looks down to find Eggsy's head pillowed on his chest.

"You'll have to forgive him, he hasn't slept since you went missing." Merlin's hand withdraws. He's beside the bed, tucked into an armchair with a tablet resting on his knees. The room is empty apart from them and the early morning sunshine filtering in from the open windows. All the finery feels like cold air blown on a wound. He fixes his eyes on the ceiling and tongues at his molars. They feel strange.

"What is it, lad?" Merlin asks after a bit of this.

"They took out my teeth."

A pause, then "You died as we arrived."

"No I didn't." He remembers Arthur's voice, can answer whether or not a person hears the gunshot that kills them. They don't. "I didn't talk, if that's why you're here."

"We know, and it isn't."

"Why else would you be?" Charlie snaps, "Eggsy's a bleeding heart, but you've got sense at least. Don't waste your time on a useless failure like me."

"Don't be melodramatic." Merlin replies. "The others have all been in to see you, except for James and Alistair, who're still mopping up what's left of the organization. They made me put them on active duty just for the privilege."

"They have?" Charlie's voice is uncharacteristically small.

"Bedivere cried."

Charlie scoffs, fights a wince when it comes out wetter than he'd intended. "Well, that's because I'm pathetic, aren't I? I've never even been on a proper mission and I've already died twice."

"How many times you've died doing what doesn't matter."

"What do you know? You're the illustrious Merlin, probably only ever died of too much bacon grease-"

"I know better than anyone." Merlin snaps. When Charlie at last looks at him, his eyes are clouded with an old sadness. He lets the moment drag, frowning into the middle distance. At length, he continues. "We had a break-in, in the eighties, when surveillance tech wasn't so advanced. A straggler from another mission. It was Christmas, and nearly everyone was gone somewhere or other. So getting his hands on me was relatively easy," he folds his hands, looks to the rising sun out the open window. "He knew what we were, and he knew he had time. If I slept on past a revival he'd let me, because he wanted me awake when he shot. So I could count down."

Now his gaze at last refocuses, on Eggsy, with a gleam like affection and hope and an edge like fear. The unsafe feeling in Charlie's heart migrates to his skin, makes him feel vulnerable and flayed by Merlin's recount. He's freed his arm at some point, won't ever admit to clinging to Eggsy the way he is. "Luckily we've never had a Galahad who was good at staying away from the office. They're very alike, these two. Harry came back to pick up some files and found what was happening. He didn't even call anyone, I woke up in the dark with him," Merlin swallows with a click. "He said he didn't know how many times it had been. He wasn't sure I'd come back."

Merlin falls silent. Charlie gets the feeling there's a lot missing from the tale.

"How many?" he asks eventually.

"Seven."

"And the- the others-"

"Harry hadn't even died once, then. As soon as the other knights started filtering back in he remedied that," Merlin sighs. "You're not the one I'm worried about, Charlie. I had to make Harry promise not to do it again. Not to try and keep even with the rest of us. Eggsy might one day need a similar persuasion. Not yet, though. For now, focus on feeling better."

Charlie snaps his eyes back to the ceiling. Maybe he really isn't like these people, but he isn't what they all think, either. "I wouldn't die for Chester. I won't die for Kingsman. Causes aren't worth my life." His arm is tight over Eggsy's shoulders as the words tumble from his lips, harsh and quick.

Merlin takes his hand again, squeezing gently. "I understand." He sounds like he does. And maybe Charlie's proved it, because he has died, and he didn't talk.

His shaking has stirred Eggsy though, so before he can pull himself together he's the subject of a wide, green-eyed stare. "Charlie," Eggsy pushes himself up over him. "Charlie? Are you ok?"

With whole and shaking fingers, this time, Charlie catches fistfuls of Eggsy's shirt and drags him in. "Shut up. Shut up, shut up." He's crying for himself, because he's wretched, he's died twice and he's been shredded once and even semi-immortal he feels like he's toeing the line of permanent oblivion, but he's crying, for once, because everyone else is too. Eggsy snaps him up automatically, the sentimental git that he is.

"He'll be alright, lad." Merlin says, and Eggsy's heartbeat slowly stops pounding against Charlie's forehead.

* * *

"There's someone in the sitting room," Merlin says, an age later when Charlie's pulled himself together and dismissed Eggsy's sympathy with a _piss off, thanks_. "But you didn't hear it from me."

Harry glances up when the door opens, then all but jumps to his feet when he sees who's come out of it. He looks haggard, his clothes rumpled in the patterns of too many hours in them and too little movement, his hair a wreck, dark smudges under his eyes. There's a book in his hands, the pages fluffed from warping grips along their edges.

"How long have you been out here?"

Harry's lips thin and he doesn't reply, but Charlie watches him take out his bookmark, left what must have been close to two hundred pages back, and place it near the end. He sets it down and faces Charlie. "I wasn't sure you'd want to see me." Harry says carefully.

It's too much, after the last few days. His heart and cheeks burn, his skin feels too tight. He puffs himself up automatically, his voice a smooth and practiced drawl when he speaks. "Please, old man, as if that would really get me down." He places a hand on his hip, grins a wide but brittle grin. "You lot needed the handicap."

He expects a polite barb about the redness around his eyes, a dig at his bravado and his non-existent confidence.

What he gets is a heavy sigh and a frustrated drag of Harry's hand through his mop of hair, all followed by a put-upon, agitated frown. Then Harry marches up to him and his quick step back isn't quick enough to escape having his ear caught up in Harry's unforgiving fingers. "Absolutely impossible," he mutters.

"Hey!" He shouts as Harry tugs him on back into the bedroom.

"You need to learn some _manners,_ young man."

Eggsy's eyes are wide as Harry chucks Charlie onto the bed and strips off his blazer. Merlin's eyebrows are high, but he doesn't seem all that surprised. Charlie's red as a cardinal and staring at him with a mixture of shock and interest.

"Pick a side." Harry says, working down his shirt buttons with swift efficiency.

Eggsy and Merlin share a glance over Charlie, then a grin.


End file.
